Mark Ingestrie did not appear to have any idea beyond the fact that it was very kind of the magistrate to visit them; but the reader will easily excuse him for not being so acute an observer as Johanna.
"I hope," said Mark, "that you will often take a canter over here, Sir Richard, before the business of the day commences, and breakfast with us. I know how very hopeless it is to expect you often at any other time."
"It is rather so," replied Sir Richard, "and my stay now must be very limited indeed. How do you both like your new house?"
"It is charming," said Johanna, "and the view from the windows is full of animation for the greater part of the day."
"It's the view in-doors," smiled Mark, "that to me is so delightful and so full of animation."
"That is just what I should have supposed," said the magistrate, glancing at Johanna with a smile.
"Now, positively, I must go and take my breakfast in some other room," said Johanna, "if there are to be any compliments. They are quite absurd, you know, among married folks."
"And a little unfair," said Sir Richard, "at meal times, I think, above all others."
"Indeed?" said Mark.
"Yes, to be sure," added Johanna, "for you know one is either obliged to hear the compliments, which feed no one but with false viands, or leave the table upon which there may be something much more substantial and decidedly more palatable."